It is finally fall weather here and I am in my happy place.  While I drink my pumpkin spice latte,  I am going to reflect on all of the sweet activities I have done with my kiddos.

First, I have a recurring problem.  What is it? I often have good intentions, but poor follow through when it comes to pulling together these types of activities.  The stumbling blocks for me are often time, energy, and money.  I am really happy with this list, because it didn’t require a lot of any of those.

They kids still enjoyed them and I feel like the best mom ever.  You have to hold that in your pocket for the not good days.  I must admit that this is the most Halloween/Fall themed materials I have ever had out for my kids. They are loving it! I am too.

We have enjoyed some great Halloween math activities. If you have been reading this blog very long, you know that I believe in the three E’s: easy, effective and efficient.  I explain more about that here.

Halloween Math Activities for Younger Kids

I printed a mini book of the story.  My kids love to make the stories interactive and Five Little Pumpkins was no exception. We used 5 popsicle sticks to act as the gate and 5 pumpkin erasers to act as the pumpkins. The kids were asked to act the story out (after reading/telling it to them a few times of course).Then they colored the books.

There are so many skills in doing something like this that I am not going to list them all. This story uses ordinal numbers and students sometimes struggle with this math concept. So it is great practice at first through fifth. This is also a great way to increase auditory memory. Auditory memory is especially important as kids begin decoding words.

We also played a pumpkin grid game. I was slow to accept the fun of the grid game, but my kids love them. I added a little extra spice with our new Disney dice and we were ready to go.

You roll the dice and add them up, then put on some type of marker. The first one to get the grid filled up wins. You use the same left to right motion and return sweep that you use in reading. This is good for developing one to one correspondence and for the older ones it is a great way to get some quick and fun addition facts practice.

We have also played this game for an afternoon treat several days the last week.  The link to my original board isn’t working so I created a new board for you guys that you is part of the free Halloween Activity Book. Enter your name and email and I will send it directly to your inbox.

If you are looking for fun preschool resources, The Princess and the Tot has wonderful resources. They roll the dice and add them together to get the number. They can eat the candy corn or whatever you prefer on that number. I adjusted and would use one dice or two depending on what numbers were left on the board. This gives students practice with addition, number sense, and numeral recognition.

I can’t wait to change our shelves this week and add more fall themed fun.

I am sharing today at Math Monday and Show and Share   the Sunday Showcase and